For thousands of years, gold has been valued as a global currency, a commodity, an investment and simply an object of beauty. As financial markets developed rapidly during the 1980s and 1990s, gold receded into the background and many investors lost touch with this asset of last resort. Recent years have seen a striking increase in investor interest in gold. While a sustained price rally, underpinned by the fact that demand consistently outstrips supply, is clearly a positive factor in this resurgence, there are many reasons why people and institutions around the world are once again investing in gold. This website provides you with the background to these reasons and describes the defining characteristics of the gold market from an investor's point of view.

Market Fundamentals

Gold's extensive appeal and functionality, including its characteristics as an investment vehicle, are underpinned by the supply and demand dynamics of the gold market.

World Gold Council Investment Research

The World Gold Council is an international not-for-profit organisation. Head-quartered in London, we have regional offices in India, China, Japan, the Middle East, Turkey and North America. Our investment research programme provides investors around the world with key information about gold.This includes the publication of a wide range of research papers - by acknowledged academics and our own in-house experts alike - looking at gold's investment characteristics, as well as a wealth of information on the structure of the market, demand and supply flows and regular updates on gold market statistics.

Virgin Gold currently operates in parts of Africa and South America and is focused on growing shareholders’ value through joint ventures, acquisitions, exploration and the development of potentially large-scale gold mining projects.

Virgin Gold utilizes various offshore vehicles to facilitate its onshore business operations. This means that we are able to generate maximum revenue and legitimately pay tax-free dividends to our shareholders.

Virgin Gold is currently undergoing an exercise that issues fresh Convertible Preferred Stocks (CPS). It invites willing investors worldwide to join in this offer. CPS is a type of stock that has conversion prices named at issuance, so it can be converted to the company's common stocks at the set rate. Virgin Gold CPS holders will receive fixed monthly dividends and reserve full rights to convert their stocks into common stocks. This can be done by paying 50% of the price difference between their CPS subscription price and IPO price when Virgin Gold launches an Initial Public Offering (IPO). For example, if a Virgin Gold CPS holder subscribed his CPS at $1.20 and the IPO offering price is $4.20; he will then need to pay 50% x (4.20 – 1.20) = $1.50 per share in order to convert his CPS to public listed common shares.

Gold Mining

Owning a gold mine, although potentially very profitable, may also be a source of ruin for many corporations. 95% of gold discoveries worldwide are not economically viable. It takes somewhere between 8 – 13 years to bring a gold mine from scratch into production, though this time frame can be halved in certain cases. Regardless of the amount of money that has had to be spent and the resources involved, many ventures have had to be scrapped at some stage due to unsolvable problems.

Construct mining facilities in accordance with approvals, requirements and standards

Process

Establish a skilled construction team to execute the development plan

Construct mine and processing facilities and associated infrastructure, such as roads, power and water lines, and employee facilities

Stage 4: Mining

10-35 years is the average lifespan for a gold mine.

Stage 5: Closure/Reclamation

Gold mining can be politically risky, for many reasons. Gold mines cannot be moved and are very capital intensive, making them very tempting targets for abuse by governments or organized labor. Even though some world regions are considered riskier than others due to different property-rights traditions and current geopolitical events, ultimately every gold mine on earth bears some level of political risk. While gold mines in Africa can be outright confiscated by malicious Marxist governments and rebel militias, those in the West can be shut down just as easily by liberal and pro-environmentalist politicians.

Though these unfortunate events are very rare, they are one of the key reasons why it is so vital for Virgin Gold to diversify its investments into different quality gold mines in different global regions.

There is no reason to regret the fact that Virgin Gold has yet to own a gold mine outright, even after a decade in this business. It is rather a testimonial of how prudent this corporation is in its decision making and toward fulfilling its responsibility to its shareholders.

There is a saying that, "a gold mine is just a hole in the ground surrounded by liars". Operating a gold mine incurs considerable costs and more often than not, gold mines with “probable reserves” turn out to be not as lucrative as portrayed. The acquisition of gold mines with “proven reserves” has reached a record high; reflecting the record price of bullion gold. If gold price were to drift into a correctional phase, such investment in a gold mine at a peak price would equate to a major loss for many years down the road. Many current profitable gold producers acquired and developed their mines when gold prices were at record lows many years ago.

In fact, Virgin Gold is involved in a few gold ventures in both South America and Africa through its onshore investment vehicles. Our subsidiaries also jointly own rights to perform exploration and development work in both continents. We are sure that at the appropriate time and with the right opportunity, Virgin Gold will have outright ownership in some of the better gold mines worldwide.

We produce gold at the cheapest cost and sell at the highest market price. This is Virgin Gold's one and only operational philosophy, which is understood by each of Virgin Gold's employees. No corporation can go wrong by producing at the lowest cost and selling at the highest price.

Although the whole world is generally bullish about gold price hitting USD2,000 an ounce in the medium term; correction in-between rallies can be as much as 30-50% and last for a few years. Corporations that are not ready and do not foresee such possibilities will end up losing a lot of shareholders' monies.

With odds of only one in 3,000 discoveries leading to mine development, and only 10 percent of the world's gold deposits containing enough gold to mine, exploration can be tedious and expensive. For every one successful gold mining venture; there are at least 8 that failed. Greedy company owners led innocent investors to lose hundreds of millions every year believing in the gold rush.

At Virgin Gold, we are very prudent about production costs. We have been in operation since 1999 and have always been able to generate good profit regardless of gold price because of how we operate. We have never over-committed our resources and never over-estimated gold price rises.

Whenever possible, our employees are involved in field operations. At times when we are limited by human capacity and capital resources, we achieve our targets through cooperation, joint ventures, stock swaps, stake holdings and other financial arrangements with local and senior mine operators.

For our future operations, we are working our way into gold manufacturing and trading.

What we aim

Vision

Virgin Gold, as well as being a truly enterprising and ambitious corporation, retains realistic and achievable expectations. Currently a global niche player, our long term vision is to become an industry leader in gold mining, manufacturing and trading sectors.

We aim to achieve this through cooperation, joint ventures, partnerships, acquisitions and exploration across all geographical locations. Virgin Gold aims to raise 3 to 5 billion dollars of working capital through issuing new Convertible Preferred Stocks to the global community within the next few years.

Mission

Our corporate mission is to build a sustainable mining business that consistently delivers top earning per share to stockholders while leading in terms of safety, environmental stewardship and corporate responsibility.

IPO

While an Initial Public Offering (IPO) is an interesting and lucrative proposal, it is not part of our short term goal. We are currently comfortable as a private corporation because it allows us more room in which to grow and compete. Based in a tax and business friendly offshore jurisdiction, Virgin Gold is better-placed and more flexibly able to invest in many onshore operations than its bigger peers. Our short term goal is to grow this corporation into a global industry leader and return good and consistent dividends to shareholders.

However, going public remains our medium term priority. We foresee ourselves launching an IPO by year 2015 if the environment is conducive. It will be very interesting when this materializes since millions of our private shareholders will hold public listed shares. Virgin Gold Convertible Preferred Stockholders will be able to convert their shares into public traded common shares. The shares to which they currently subscribe with Virgin Gold will potentially appreciate several times over after the IPO.

Since its founding in 1999, Virgin Gold Mining Corporation has grown quickly to become one of the world's leading gold exploration and mining companies and a young, dynamic organization with a global reach and an international perspective. Based in Panama, an international offshore tax-free jurisdiction, Virgin Gold utilizes various offshore vehicles to facilitate its onshore business operations. This means we are able to generate good revenue and tax-free dividend to our shareholders worldwide.

With approximately 500 employees, Virgin Gold is efficiently managed, whereby everyone in the organization understands its mission, vision and corporate philosophies. Despite our tender age, Virgin Gold is better structured, and more prudently managed and financially viable than its peers, allowing it to optimally exploit any unforeseen volatility in the current financial market.

The executive boards are responsible for running the day-to-day operations of the corporation while the board of directors makes vital decisions and decides on major issues as advised by the various committees. The latter support the Board of Directors in assessing risks, setting remuneration, and monitoring the integrity of the financial statements. Meanwhile, both external and internal auditors collaborate closely to ensure every single operation achieves its objectives, shareholders enjoy maximum benefit and the corporation grows to greater heights.